


Letters

by sternflammenden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:18:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternflammenden/pseuds/sternflammenden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The consequences of ignoring your wife's love letters when you are away at war.  </p>
<p>Set before the Red Wedding, after Roose's host returns from Harrenhall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letters

Roose doesn’t mind Walda’s presence in their rooms. Despite the situation, the war, the subterfuge, Ramsay’s idiocies, all of it, it’s pleasant to, in the evenings, return to clean rushes and sheets, tidied papers, mulled wine kept warm on the brazier. Not that Walda does any of it herself. As soon as she became Lady Bolton she assumed airs, ordering her grandfather’s household about with abandon, her giggly politeness replaced by a cool entitlement. He’s quite sure that she’s been mimicking him, watching his interactions with her Lord Grandfather, and learning the importance of restraint and subtlety, and most importantly, that of a carefully concealed threat. Not that Walda is threatening. She’s usually solicitous, sometimes ridiculous, and always willing to please.

Tonight as he writes a letter to Ramsay, chastising him for some misstep, he looks up from the inky diatribe to see her perched in a chair opposite, watching him scribble out missive after missive, a half smile on her face. She doesn’t break her gaze or seem to mind that he’s caught her staring, and the smile widens. 

“What is it?” he says, half under his breath, sure that she’s about to burst out with a request for some foolishness, but Walda shakes her head. 

“I’m just watching you work,” she says. “Such long days and long nights you keep, Lord Husband.” 

He turns back to the letter, remembering the scrawled accounts of Ramsay’s hamfisted sacking of Winterfell, and shakes his head. They have the Greyjoy ward, that is something, although he would rather his bastard had not played such a flimsy switch. But it is too late to worry over such things, and as he finishes the final sentence, he feels his new wife’s presence at his elbow, reading over his shoulder. 

“Such even penmanship,” she says admiringly. “I fear I’ll never write straight.” 

“You’ll never need to,” he says, turning to her, blotting the letter. “After all, I’ve only ever seen you write love letters.”

“Love letters,” Walda whispers, blushing, “that you never answered.”

She places her warm hand on his colder one, stroking it. He looks at her then, and although Roose does not feel the slightest guilt for consigning her inane letters to the flames at Harrenhall, he feels the need to atone for his husbandly neglect. It would not do to cause Lord Walder’s granddaughter to frown and in this alliance, he is ever so cautious. 

“There was little time for frivolity, little wife,” he says, “but I did read them.” Read them he did, or at least forced the Maester or the cupbearer to do so as he was leeched, or as he laid out battleplans for his king. They were ridiculous, excessive, full of bad metaphor and hackneyed poetry. But they were his, in the end. And on some level, they were amusing. 

“Then write me one now,” she says, and the silly grin is gone from her face. “No one ever did before.” 

Roose isn’t a sentimental person; in fact, he’s only thought of this girl as a means to a legitimate son and a bedwarmer, but there’s something pathetic in the cast of her eyes, the way that she holds back, her fingers nervously worrying the edge of a parchment on the desk. He pulls out a fresh sheet and lays it before him, waiting. 

“I am not by nature affectionate,” he says, detaching his hand from hers, but he holds the quill above the paper, at a loss as to what to write, as to what will make this child happy. “So I cannot promise you poetry.”

“I’ll help you,” she says, and her voice is gentle. She takes a breath and begins. “My dearest wife,” Walda says, speaking slowly so that he is able to take down her words. “In you I have found the mother to my children, a comfort in times of distress, and a willing bedmate.” She blushes at the last. “Although we have only known each other for a short time, I know that our union will be a happy one, and although I do not often express my affection for you in traditional means, you please me greatly. You make me smile and you make me laugh, and few things, if any, do in these times.” She stops, biting her lip, unable to look him in the eye. Her cheeks were pink. 

Roose puts the pen down, staring expectantly at her. Walda picks it up then, her handwriting clumsy and affected, full of whorls and loops, so unlike his terse, even script. 

She continues speaking as she writes. “I am glad that we found each other, even if it is under strange circumstances. I do not know what I would do without you.”

Walda puts down the quill then, leaving the letter to dry. 

“You do make me smile,” Roose says, whispers really, and Walda’s face flushes with pleasure. Her cheeks dimple and she bites her lower lip as he takes hold of her hands, pulling her down onto his lap. They sit there for a long while, her cheek pressed against the rough wool of his tunic, his arms pulling her close. Walda doesn’t think of speaking or moving; she sits quietly and listens to her husband’s breath. Roose rests his cheek on her hair, fair and tangled, yet very soft, enjoying the comforting press of Walda’s plump little body. 

*

She awkwardly cranes her arms around his neck and presses her lips to his, closing her eyes as his hands grip her waist, holding her fast, pulling her body against his. When they wander to her skirts and he fumbles awkwardly with the fabric, she dares to speak. 

“My lord, would this not be easier in the bed?” Walda giggles then, the sad look gone from her face at last. Roose nods in agreement, rising after her, hands unlacing the bodice of her gown, a light pink, a dress he bought for her with ill-gotten silver. Walda knows where it came from, but she doesn’t mention it, for such things cut too close. He slides the dress off of her shoulders and reaches around her, hands clutching at her breasts, and the rough wool of his tunic scratches her bare back. Her hair hangs half-askew from the careful updo that she bade her maid contruct, her maiden’s tresses no longer appropriate now that she’s someone’s lady, someone’s wife. 

She turns in his arms, undoing his tunic, unlacing his breeches, and she’s impressed at how proficient she’s become with the mystery of men’s clothing, how easily she disrobes him, her hands aching to touch bare flesh instead of fabric. 

When Walda reaches for him, he checks her eager fingers. His expression is stern, but she can see the faint edge of a smile on his lips. Her enthusiasm pleases him, she knows it, and Walda will always seek out those subtle looks of approval. “You have no patience,” he says softly, but there is an edge to his voice that she only hears in the bedroom. “Restrain yourself, little Walda.” 

And she does, but reluctantly, permitting him to take the lead, allowing him to guide her to the bed, his hands brushing her hair away from where it covers her breasts, his hands stroking her round little figure. She notices that Roose has finally allowed himself to smile and she knows that it is because of her, because of how pleasant she must feel. 

“Oh, Roose,” she sighs. She rarely calls her husband by name when they in public, but when they are alone, Walda casts all formality aside. “How I love my lord husband.” 

“Walda,” he says, his voice muffled as he nuzzles his face against her breasts. 

That is the extent of it, and it is enough for the moment. She wraps her legs around his body when he enters her, and as they move together, her breath quickens until she is afraid that she will faint, but it is over all too soon, and when he spends himself, she presses her legs together afterwards, thinking of what their children will look like, wondering what sort of mother that she will be. But such thoughts are forgotten when her husband’s hands slide around her waist, pulling her against him. 

“You are quite a letter writer, little wife,” he says in her ear, as he takes her once more from behind, and Walda laughs. Her laughs quickly turn to gasps to moans, as she in turn climaxes, and when it is over, when they are both exhausted, she thinks how she will answer the missive from her beloved.


End file.
